A Rock and A Hard Place
by JoMiSm
Summary: This was a prompt for BothArtemisAndAthena ages ago. Hope you enjoy. The team gets back from a failed mission and are caught by a scary surprise...
1. Chapter 1

July 13, 2013 was when this was PMed to bothArtemisandAthena. It's for them. :) Thank youuuu for the prompt! (I actually wrote it the day you gave it to me just didn't post it)

Disclaimer: Don't own the Avengers.

* * *

"You see, guys, this is why you're never invited on a mission." Clint Barton growled, leaning heavily on his partner as the Avengers stumbled into Stark tower. Well, except for Natasha; she walked smoothly in, trying not to jostle her limping partner.

"Oh, Shut up, Barton." Tony replied, collapsing onto one of his couches. "That wasn't just our fault."

Natasha gently deposited Clint onto the couch, fishing around in her purse for something. "That was your fault!" Clint protested. "Amateurs." he muttered.

Bruce, Steve, and Thor sheepishly sat on the last remaining couch, but didn't try to join the budding argument. Unfortunately, Tony didn't plan on quitting soon.

"That was so not my-! Guys, whose fault was it that that mission went wrong?" Tony said, looking over at the sheepish men who'd all messed up at one point or another.

"Don't drag me into this, Tony." Bruce said wearily.

At the same time, Steve said: "Leave me out of this, Stark."

Thor remained silent for a moment. Thor didn't want to disappoint, but... "It appears we are at fault, Friend Stark." he said finally.

"Well, thanks for the support, guys." Tony grumbled.

During all of this hullabaloo, Natasha found the gauze she was looking for in her purse, and she had already bandaged Clint's calf.

"Who exactly set off the bomb and blew our cover?" Clint asked.

"I didn't mean to!" yelled Tony, looking angry. He'd already apologized when it happened, during the mission, and in the car on the way home. He felt that he'd justly apologized. (Still, it really was his fault the mission went so wrong.)

"Well, it doesn't matter if you meant to, you did, and we failed because of it!" Clint yelled back.

Oh, no. The yelling picked up from there, neither able to be shushed...Because neither would admit to being wrong.

Bruce was the one to notice Natasha paling rapidly. "Natasha?" he asked softly from across the room, barely heard over the shouting.

Natasha glanced at him, avoiding his eyes, and it was then he really got worried.

"Guys-" he started, in his normal, soft tone of voice. Neither actually heard him. "Guys...!" He started again, a little louder. Neither heard, or if they did, neither stopped. "Guys!" He shouted.

The room went silent, shocked that Bruce had yelled. That's...so...unlike him, it stunned them all.

He looked back at Natasha, going into gentle doctor mode, used to working with frightened children. "Are you okay, Natasha?" he asked, looking concerned.

Natasha put on her poker face, appearing totally fine, except her already pale and rapidly getting paler skin. "I'm fine." she said softly.

Clint looked over at her worriedly, and he immediately spotted the wound she had successfully hidden from the rest of the team. "Natasha..." he said warningly.

Her innocent look only scared him more. Irritated with her lack of self-preservation skills, he reached over to unzip her catsuit.

"Oi! Get a room!" Tony said, covering his eyes, though everyone knew Natasha wore a white tank top under her uniform.

"Shut up, Stark." Clint said. Defeated, Natasha didn't protest. The whole room saw the gunshot wound far too close to her heart for comfort, said white tank top stained red. "Natasha!" Clint said, shocked.

"I'm fine, Clint, you're worried for nothing." Natasha sighed, crossing her arms in front of the devastating wound.

"Then why're you trembling?" Clint said worriedly.

"I'm fine, I swear. Jarvis, stop turning down the lights." Natasha said, keeping up her calm demeanor.

"Miss Romanoff, I have not altered the lights." Jarvis said. If it's possible for an AI to sound worried, he did.

"Then why's the room getting darker?" Natasha asked faintly. Before anyone could react, she collapsed, sliding off of the couch and into the floor.

A number of rather loud reactions came from most of them, basically panic from Tony, Steve, and Thor. The scariest person in the room just passed out without even a gasp! The other two, Bruce and Clint, remained calm. Clint knelt beside his unconscious partner, rapidly bleeding out, and lifted her into his arms. Bruce made his way through the panicking people.

"Blood loss." Bruce said, before he even got there. "Get her to the lab, she needs a transfusion."

Clint began to the lab. "But she can't have a transfusion. She has enhancers. It'd be like giving Steve a transfusion." he said, not looking at the doctor whom he was addressing. He chose instead to look at the dying woman in his arms.

Bruce didn't break his calm doctor mask. "We'll find something." He actually had no idea how he was going to save his friend's soulmate.


	2. Chapter 2

_**To the guest who reviewed and referred to me as "Jo" ;D (love you): No! No! It's not Annie's sequel. :D And, I really appreciate your faith in me (and Tasha) there... :D **_

* * *

Natasha remained unconscious as they basically _ran _to the medical area of Stark Towers. The elevator would have been far too slow for them at the moment, when desperation was palpable in the air, so they ran down the stairs, almost twice as fast as the elevator would have been.

The adrenaline lent them speed, though that wasn't necessarily a good thing for Bruce. He slowed behind Clint and Clint looked back at him, slowing marginally. Clint started to ask why Bruce had stopped, but it was obvious: green faintly tinged his face. Adrenaline, worry, and a raised heart rate were not working in his favor. "Go, go," Bruce said. "Get her to the Med-bay."

Clint needed no further prompting. He turned and made it to the hospital area in no time, flat.

Bruce found, upon arriving (much too slow for his liking), that Clint had at least some idea what he was doing. He'd already gotten Natasha up onto the operation table and some of the equipment sterilized, though done much more quickly than Bruce could have done with a clean conscience. He assumed that Clint'd been in this situation before, but with the wound in a less dangerous spot.

"She's healing." Clint said. His voice was grim.

"Is the bullet still in there?" Bruce asked quickly, pulling on some gloves and reaching for the surgical tweezers all in one smooth step.

Clint nodded briskly, stepping out of the way. Natasha's enhancers were working against her in this moment; healing with the bullet still inside could be disastrous.

Bruce stepped in, but he was just barely too late; it was almost completely closed. Fast-acting enhancers.

"I can't leave it in there, but if I reopen the wound, she's going to lose more blood." Bruce said. He paused. He really didn't want to say this, but he had to be level with Clint. "We could lose her, Clint." Bruce said quietly. "It's a very real possibility."

"Get it out." Clint said gruffly, looking away. Bruce went to work.

* * *

His partner was dying.

His partner was dying.

His partner was dying.

His partner was dying.

Natasha.

Natasha.

Natasha.

Every breath Clint took, every beat of his heart, they all echoed her name. The pain Clint felt was almost physical.

She couldn't die.

No.

No.

No.

Natasha.

Natasha.

Natasha.

Stay.

* * *

Bruce stepped outside quite a long time later. Clint was sitting, his back against the wall, outside of the room. The impromptu operation had quickly turned more serious when Bruce found out that the bullet was _very, very _close to a major artery. It had taken a long time, and Bruce had done his best, but...

Clint looked up. "How is she?" His voice was hoarse; he hadn't talked in hours, just sat there waiting.

Bruce was silent for a few moments too long and Clint's heart dropped through the floor.

_No._

_No._

_No._

_Natasha._

"Is she..." Clint whispered. He couldn't finish the sentence. It hurt. It hurt. Why did it hurt so badly?

Bruce's face was grim. He looked as though he had the entire weight of the world on his shoulders, and, indeed, the life of his partner's entire world _was _on his shoulders. He took a deep breath. "She's not doing well, Clint."

_Natasha. _

_Natasha._

_Natasha._

"What's wrong?" Clint asked. He didn't know it, but his face looked as though he was waiting for Bruce to punch him.

He wished Bruce would punch him. Bruises went away. Lives could not be brought back.

Bruce held out his hand to Clint and helped him up from the ground. "I'll explain in there."

* * *

She'd slipped into a coma during the operation. It was as simple as that. And yet, it was _not _that simple, for she was... she wasn't expected to come back. Ever.

"Clint," Bruce said softly to his friend. Clint was looking at Natasha, his stare unfocused. "You're the only person with the right to say whether or not we pull the plug."

Clint's heart literally stopped for a moment before he turned, enraged, to Bruce. "_Pull the plug?!_" Clint yelled. "If there is any chance at all of her surviving-! I am not going to _kill _Natasha! _You _are not going to kill her! I am _never _going to give the go-ahead!" Clint looked as though he was ready to punch Bruce for even mentioning it. He was positively seething. He turned away with his fists clenched, but he drooped when he saw Natasha again.

There was a pause before Clint added quietly, so quietly that Bruce almost missed it: "She's going to live." It was the basis of sentimentality, a child at prayer... he wasn't asking, nor was he stating that she was going to live, he was _begging. _Commanding. She had to. She just had to.

Bruce waited for a moment before he spoke. "I wasn't suggesting that, Clint." he said in his consoling-doctor tone of voice. "You have been given the choice because you know better than anyone what she would want. Take your time." Bruce said. Knowing that Clint would want to be alone, Bruce left.

Clint sat heavily in the chair beside Natasha's bed, reaching for her hand. There was no reassuring pressure from her, just a terrifying stillness.

"Tasha," Clint sighed, heartbreak in his voice. "What am I going to do?"

And, as expected, Natasha did not respond.

* * *

_**I didn't mean for this to turn into Chapter 14 of The Spider and The Hawk by LivinJgrl123, but it kind of did. It was a prompt that I sent her a long time ago and it bled into this piece. It turns out differently, I think, but still, some credit must go to her because she's written something similar. **_

_**M'kay, bye!**_

_**-JoMiSm**_

_**p.s. i love you all equally, but to my guests: 1.) please, use a name. Natalie Rushman/Rushman 2.0 was either of those until she made an account. Black Thorn is Black Thorn on all of my fics and I recognize her name by now. I can also respond to her and she will know that I am talking about her in the A/N. If I have multiple guests, it is just less confusing if you use a name. Please. Thank you. That is all. :D **_

_**Oh, and Black Thorn, since you asked so politely, I will indeed work on writing you an update. :D Love you!**_


	3. Chapter 3

Clint sat beside Natasha's bed for the next several, unmeasurable days.

There are no words for his pain, but I can try to explain to you how this would feel. Imagine:

You are a horrible, horrible person. You are a murderer. You have killed for money and you have killed purely for revenge's sake. You know that you're a villain and everyone else knows it, too. You're alone, and when someone tries to reach out to you, you make sure you _stay_ alone. You are miserable.

Then, one day, you find someone like you, someone who is just as despicable but someone who _wants, _so badly, to change. You let them in and you grow together. You don't kill for revenge or money; you kill when it's necessary and you only kill the bad guys, the ones who positively can not be reformed. As you teach possibly the only person in the world who understands you, you find the good in yourself through the good in them. You learn to love again.

And then that person, the only person in the world who understands you, is dying right in front of you. You can do nothing to stop it, not with your guns or bombs or your special bow and arrows. There's no man to threaten, no physical enemy. It doesn't help that you'd go to the end of the earth to save them because going to the end of the earth _would be useless. __You can not help. _

That is precisely the situation going on. Clint wanted _so, so _badly to help Natasha, but he couldn't. He was utterly powerless and it _hurt, _it hurt so much to look at Natasha, hooked up to all of those machines, not able to breath or anything on her own.

The team came by to see him and to see her, but they couldn't help. Flowers filled the room, and when it was leaked to the press after Natasha didn't appear outside for several days, fan mail and well-wishes flooded the room. The bright colors seemed garish and wrong, everything looked too real; Clint was going insane and in an instant he was sure.

He knew what she'd want.

He knew.

"No, Tasha." Clint moaned, resting his head on the railing of her bed. "I can't."

She didn't answer, of course. She was still unconscious, her breath rising and falling with measured clicks. That didn't change the fact that Clint was utterly sure of what she would respond with: _Of course you can, you idiot! _she would say. _You wouldn't want to be a vegetable. You know that I don't want to be one, either. _

"I've murdered enough people in my life," Clint whispered. "I don't want to add your name to the list."

Again, it was like she'd spoken aloud: _They chose you for a reason, Clint. You know me better than anyone. _and she'd pause, maybe give him a reassuring touch or maybe she'd squeeze his hand. Her voice would be anything but gentle like she'd been a moment before. _I don't want to lay in this bed for the rest of my life. Don't make me, Clint. __  
_

* * *

Clint's head was in his hands when Bruce walked in to check Natasha's vitals. "How're you holding up, Clint?" Bruce asked quietly.

"We have to do it."

Bruce, startled, took a moment to register what he was saying. This was a huge revelation and completely terrifying. "You're sure?" Bruce asked. It'd been somewhere around three weeks since Natasha'd slipped into the coma. She'd shown no improvement. Bruce had sadly expected it but was not looking forward to it.

Clint's voice was heavy. "It's what she'd want."

Bruce paused, unsure of what to say or do. Clint was never a touchy-feely person, but he was certainly in need of comfort in this moment of need. Bruce settled for a steadying hand on Clint's shoulder.

Clint took in a shuddering breath. "Just do it." he said. "Before I change my mind."

Bruce, knowing that he'd want to be alone, went away to the control room; this process could be done wirelessly thanks to Stark-tech. Before he... he _unplugged_ (such a cruel word) Natasha, he sent out a memo via Jarvis to the other Avengers.

"It would be advisable to stay away from Agent Barton for the next hour or so." Jarvis said softly. The AI was completely capable of sounding sad, and sad he sounded. Thor, Tony, and Steve all heard the memo and their hearts dropped, knowing what was going to happen.

Clint held Natasha's hand.

_The only one._

_The only one in the world._

"I love you, Tasha." Clint whispered.

_Can't live without her._

_It hurts so much._

He laid his head against the railing of her bed, silent sobs racking his body, when the machines were disconnected.

_I love her._

_I love her so much._

_It should have been me._

_It should have been me._

"It should have been me..." He didn't realize he was speaking aloud through his tears, through the tears that could only be replaced with bitterness and hatred toward the rest of the world again.

He was so lost in his despair that he almost missed the faint words spoken from beside him. "Stop wishing that you'd died, you idiot."

He looked up quickly. "Tasha?"

_Don't get your hopes up._

_Life is full of disappointments. _

"You really think a silly little thing like being in a coma is going to kill me?" she asked faintly, but her smile was the same, just as sarcastic as ever.

Clint's laugh sounded choked through his tears, almost hysterical with relief, but it was a laugh nonetheless. "Don't ever make me do that again." he said.

"Don't plan on it." Natasha said, reaching up a hand to wipe a tear from his face. There was a pause for the perfect-ness of the moment, but Natasha ruined it, saying "You cried over me." with a slight laugh.

"Did not!"

"Did so!"

"I did not, I was just-"

"If you say you were sweating through your eyes, I'm going to get out of this bed and smack you."

Clint laughed, surrendering, and it was only then, when Natasha was threatening him from her literal deathbed, that he knew that everything could eventually go back to normal. She would be alright. They would be alright.

* * *

**_Finished! A nice little three-shot! :D Go me, go me! :D Review, please, because I worked very hard on this WHEN THE ELECTRICITY WAS OUT. The power is out right now and the wifi runs on a battery. My laptop, however, has a very limited amount of time left-and I used some of it on this. THAT'S RIGHT. I DESERVE A REVIEW. _**

**_Love you!_**

**_JoMiSm_**


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